1Professor, Management Education & Research Institute, Janakpuri Institutional Area, New Delhi, Delhi110058, India.
2Visting Professor, Department of Operations Research and Operations Management, S P Jain School of Global Management, 10 Hyderabad Rd, Hort Park, Singapore-119579, manoj.kumar@meri.edu.in
Online Published on 06 August, 2022.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between 5S use, contextual factors and performance. The contextual factors comprise structural features of the firm, environment, human resources and technology and quality management. The performance measures refer to improvements in productivity, quality, employee satisfaction, lead time and new product design.
A questionnaire survey was conducted in 203 Indian manufacturing plants, with personnel interviewees. The hypotheses proposed were verified using correlation analysis and analysis of variance.
The results show the existence of a positive relationship between the use of 5S and some contextual factors such as size, the integration of the plant in a multinational group, the type of product manufactured, the technology used and the quality programmes in the plant. Moreover, 5S is positively related to some operational performance measures, especially those referring to quality and productivity.
This paper contributes to the scarce empirical literature analyzing the factors related to the use of 5S and its association with manufacturing performance.
5S, Contextual factors, Operating performance, Indian Firms
